I love your thesis. Love it. I'm not sure if you already know this, but you're actually echoing an extremely prevalent idea through theater theory which is that the unreal is real or that the real can only be divulged through examining the unreal. So some suggestions...
1. Try looking at your thesis through the lens of theater history/ look at different performance histories of The Winter's Tale.
2. When I was talking with some of the cast members of BYU's production of The Winter's Tale they talked about the element of magic in it. I can probably give you some contact information so that you can e-mail one of the cast members if you want.
3. http://metalib.lib.byu.edu/V/PR25DA99MGXLGGAE74A2Q8A9GY22L379VL9TRVDGLQVEGQK72B-65344?func=meta-3&short-format=002&set_number=002313&set_entry=000005&format=999 this is an article I found online and it's actually about a man who was the lighting director for a production of As You Like It and The Tempest. It's pretty short, but relevant to your topic - he talks about how it's difficult to work the logistics of creating the "magic" of Shakespeare's plays. For anyone involved in putting on a production, magic is a very real. If you want to present magic on the stage you have to have a firm connection with reality - how are the lights going to work? what about the stage crew? costum changes?
I know that this wasn't an angle you were taking, but I think it's one worth considering :) Good luck!
Yours truly,
Mikaela
Mikaela, thanks so much for your suggestions! I like that you're looking at my thesis through the lens of theater and I'd love to get the contact info for members of The Winter's Tale cast. I will have some sources for you by class tomorrow! Sorry it's taking a bit.
ReplyDeleteHey Rachel - so hopefully you see this but if not I'll talk to you about it in class tomorrow. on the fifth floor they have that huge collection of brown books of shakespeare criticism - in the seventh volume is The Winter's Tale and there's several essay excerpts in there from the early 18 century that argue that the plot of The Winter's Tale was actually stolen from an old Romantic story called Dorastus and Faunia - thought you might be interested since you're looking at the Romantic angle :) (look at Nicholas Rowe's essay and Arthur Murphy's)
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